Hey everybody!  Has your week been crazy, too?!  Our second graders have been crazy about place value this week!  I just love teaching all the concepts that go along with this unit.  Our district has a math consultant, and we were fortunate enough to have her come to our classrooms this week.  She shared some really good ideas to reinforce place value. First, we played "Race to 100!"  The kiddos just loved this one!  They each had a partner, a place-value mat, 2 dice, and base-ten blocks.  They took turns rolling the dice and added the sum to their place value mat each time.  The first to 100 won the game.  They love anything where they get to roll dice! Next, they went to the carpet to hear this fabulous story: I never thought of using this to teach place value!  I always used it to compare/contrast.  After they listened to the story, they went back to their seats to make pig houses out of the base-......

 Hey y'all!  We found some awesome websites with resources for the second grade Treasures reading series.  I mean they are A.W.E.S.O.M.E.!!!  I use these every.single.day!  Mrs. Gurian's webpage has resources organized by each story.  I love the word sorts, word work plans, spelling homework, and the poems she uses to teach the week's phonics rule.  She is so kind to share these with all of us teachers out here.  Click below for the link. We also love Mr. Thompson's website .  He has some amazing SMART board lessons, vocabulary PowerPoints, and vocabulary homework.  Be sure to check him out, as well.  You can click below to be taken to his site. I can't wait to post later this week on what we have been doing with place value!  Until then, have a great day tomorrow from Tiffany at The Lemonade Stand!  ...

We honored those lost in the 9/11 attacks with these little firemen.   You can see the template {HERE} .   My second grade friends wrote thank you letters to firemen.  We watched a really good video, too, on Learn360.  It was a Reading Rainbow video, and it did a really great job of talking about the terrible tragedy in a kid-friendly way. I have the Lesson Plan SOS guided reading guru packet and love it!  I got this idea from these sweet girls!   Thanks for reminding me ladies!  I use those practically everyday and went completely blank!  I just tweaked it and created my own to suit my needs.  I feel like I finally have my small guided reading groups up and going smoothly now.  Thank goodness!  I love having the students' names on post-it notes to allow for more flexible grouping.  (I should have used some cuter ones now that I'm looking at it!)  This is right behind my teacher table. I loved The Firs......

Ok ladies and gentleman.......I am trying so hard to get the hang of this embedding files on Google docs. I think I've almost got it. So... I have created a number bonds activity packet for anyone to use. I also took better pics! These pics show a little better how the students use them in my class.  This is a number bond  bracelet being used with our enVision math.  Making a worksheet into a manipulative! Check out my parts of nine! Here's my activity packets for center time.....Three in different colors and small envelopes. Use the numbers to create parts of a whole and show it with your number bond bracelet. Use center activity with the practice sheet. Number Bond Packet         The packet would not format totally right.  The sheets are perfect but with a lot of extra nonsense..... Print page numbers----- i'm very aggrivated about this!!! Sorry! It works and looks fine on my end... throught gooogle docs i......

We have been making number bond bracelets in 1st grade! They are so easy to make and they really help students learn whole number and a numbers' parts. What you need: chenille sticks (pipe cleaners) A big bucket of beads.... and that's it!!  Pick a number... in Envision math 1st grade starts at 6 and goes to 9. Sooo, we started with six beads all the same color. (they got to choose what color beads-but as a class we used white sticks for 6, red sticks for 7, green for 8 and blue sticks for 9- this is so I can say "pick up your six number bond bracelet, the white bracelet" and it's fast and easy!)   Once the bracelet is beaded.. just twist the ends together and you have the perfect concrete example of whole numbers and their parts!!!  Students are asked to find two parts of a number. They pull the beads a"part" to get all the combinations of a given number. This is such great practice and is the best visual I've ever used!!! ......

So, it has been a crazy week!  Tennessee adopted a new evaluation model this year, and my first observation was this past week.  I decided to do my lesson on main idea.  We have been finding the main idea in Treasures for the past two weeks.  Main idea is such a difficult thing for our little ones to get the hang of.  Here are some of the things we did this week in covering main idea: We made anchor charts in which we discussed the main idea and supporting details. We watched a really cute movie on BrainPop Jr about how to find the main idea in text.  This one really got their attention.  They love BrainPop! I had my second graders trace their hands on construction paper and cut them out.  They put the supporting details on their fingers and the main idea on the palm of their hand. This is a main idea mobile I made.  The main idea is at the top and the supporting details hang off the......

Sunday is Grandparents Day, but our school will celebrate on Friday.  We invite all grandparents in for breakfast with their grandchildren that morning.  Last year, I had students write a letter to their grandparents and had it on their desks when the grandparents came in.  Second grade also put on a performance for them, singing some of our morning meeting songs and "Fifty Nifty United States."  This year, we are not doing a program, but I need some ideas on what to do instead.  I have included a free copy of the letter I am using, but I need something else, too.  If any of you awesome teacher bloggers have some great ideas, please let me know!  Thanks everybody!  ...

    http://www.abcya.com/ Check this site out!! It is such a great resource for teachers. I just came across this site looking for a pizza activity that i'm going to use for sequencing. I found the game I wanted (create your own pizza) for my writing activity. It has K-5th grade educational games and skills building apps. So far I am very impressed!!!! Thank you- ABCYA.com!!!! I'll post my pizza unit on sequencing as soon as i'm finished tweeking it!!! It's based on the book Pete's a Pizza by William Steig. Pete's a Pizza     snag your own copy hereand be ready for the unit!!!        Have a great holiday and happy game hunting from The Lemonade Stand Teachers...